Hello and welcome to The Daring Cardmakers blog!
We are a team of card-makers from the UK, mainland Europe and India who'll try to inspire and encourage you to make some wonderful cards.
Every Friday at about 10am UK time, one of our design team will post a new dare/challenge, along with our creations to get you inspired.
So go on, give it a try - we dare you!
Leave us a comment with a link to your card so that we can view your lovely creations too!

Friday, April 24, 2015

A big thank you to everyone who joined in with Nat's quirky "Arrow" themed challenge last week, it was fun to see how you responded to that one!

Now though, are you ready for a new challenge? We hope so!

This week's challenge is called:

Under the Weather

It seems that everyone we know is either feeling really poorly, or is just getting over some nasty bug or other. So we thought we'd have a challenge all about "Get Well Soon" cards....and what with it still being April, the month famed for it's rain showers (though here in the UK it's been pretty much "sunshine all the way" this year) we'd like you to add a

weather-related twist to your cards.

To put it simply, we'd like to see Weather Related Get Well Soon cards

We're looking forward to seeing what you make, but for starters here's what our team came up with

Friday, April 17, 2015

It's Nat here - before I get down to business with this week's challenge, thank you to those of you who joined in with last week's "I Like Pie" dare!

My challenge to you this week is inspired by my current TV obsession: Arrow.

Without spoiling the entire series for those that haven't seen it, I'll let Mr Queen provide the intro:

The name of the island they found me on is Lian Yu. It's Mandarin for
"purgatory". I've been stranded here for five years. I've dreamt of my
rescue every cold black night since then. For five years I've had only
one thought, one goal - survive. Survive and one day return home. The
island held many dangers. To live, I had to make myself more than what I
was, to forge myself into a weapon. I am returning not the boy who was
shipwrecked, but the man who will bring justice to those who have poisoned my
city.My name is Oliver Queen.

I could go on and on about my love of this show, the triumvirate that is Team Arrow, the comedic and MIT-Class-of-'09 genius of Felicity Smoak, and how this show has been playing on constant loop since I binge-watched Seasons 1 and 2 last summer, but I will spare you!*

Basically, it's a really good show - you should check it out.

* And full disclosure - I am an Olicity shipper! :D

So onto the details of this week's dare:

My challenge to you is to feature arrows on your card this week. They are a very current design trend in the crafting industry at the moment - lots of stamps, dies, papers are featuring arrows.

I would love to see whether you can interpret anything else from Arrow into your cards - like the colour green (as Oliver Queen knows, it's not easy being green), a nod to the Starling city skyline, comic book super heroes, Felicity Smoak's iconic glasses, somehow getting the word Sinceriously on your card...

Whatever you go with, there has to be at least one arrow on your card!

If you need further inspiration - get yourself on Pinterest and YouTube for Arrow-related content.

Here are the fab creations the Design Team came up with - they have not failed this dare!

Friday, April 10, 2015

Jo here with this week's challenge, but first a big Thank You to all who shared their lovely cards over the last week with us using Zuzana's Elemental Inspiration picture as a starting point, we really do love to see what you make.

Despite the title, there's no cooking involved this week.....

I Like Pie!I'd like you to take your inspiration from all those Maths diagrams we used at school and use a pie chart or other mathematical diagram (venn diagrams, bar charts, graph etc ) on your card.

To help you get thinking here's what the team came up with, showing that maths can be fun!

Friday, April 03, 2015

It's Zuzana here this time and Spring is knocking on our doors and nature is waking up to fresh colours. Temperatures are rising and sunshine warming. Let's make something wonderful!

I've chosen very spring picture for you. I am asking you to create a card project with at least 3 elements from my picture on it. It could be the colour scheme, pattern or shape. You could use the layout sketch too. Our design team have prepared real eye candies for you! Be inspired. We can't wait to see what you created.

who will be our Guest Designer throughout April. We should say "Welcome Back" really as this is the second time Enfys has shared her lovely creations with us as a GD - check out the first of her cards for this month below and you'll understand why we're thrilled she's back!

Daring Cardmakers

Current DCM Designers

Currrent Guest Designer

Copyright Notice

We are happy to share our designs here in the hope that they inspire you to develop your own ideas. However, please respect our right not to have our designs copied or "lifted" - direct copying of any design shown on this blog or our personal blogs is an infringement of copyright.

If you are pinning our cards on Pinterest please quote Daring Cardmakers and the individual designers name as the reference in the description.

Would You Like to Play?

Click on the link, or contact Kathy

Sponsoring Us

Please don't use our challenges simply to publicise products you are selling. Instead, how about sponsoring one of our dares?Contact one of the team via our personal blogs for more information